Header Menu

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Song of the Week! 11 July 2015


After years of waiting for PS vita users, a Taiko videogame finally graced their systems, turning itself into what it's shaped tho be the greatest console title in years!

With tons of new songs and difficult trials to choose from, today's feature is about my favourite among the newly-released Namco Originals.

 Kokushin Chronicle (黒神クロニクル)
Version
Allx3 (147)x4 (234)x6 (418)x7 (567)
 Taiko PS V
 123
 none
 59shin


More than other console games in the past, V Version's newly-introduced Namco Originals mostly gravitate around female vocalists, counting 6 out of the 9 new songs for the genre (7 if you also include Norudon 2000's marginal female presence). It also happens that I'm personally digging one of these a lot! One of V Version's default tracks, Kokushin Chronicle is made by the same group of people who is also responsible for Namco Original Sacred Ruin, featuring Kami-wa (祇羽) as the lyricist, the nick-named Drop as the composer and Yura Hatsuki (葉月ゆら) as the singer.

About the song's vocalist, we currently know that she's an independent lyricist/singer from Osaka, whose talents shone under a wide variety of doujin circles along the years. Yura started her musical-producing journey in 2006 with the founding of Quartier Latin, her personal website (link), under the pro-net inc. label. Since then, she has made 5 independent albums, a mini-album and many works with different doujin circles, with many of her roles with songs from StudioGIW members being featured on Taiko games from time to time. She defines herself mainly as a "Healing Moe Artist", although she's also into the creations of gothic-themed songs, as her personal interests for cats and horror tropes (mainly zombies) also hint at. Aside from her website, Yura also holds a twitter account (link) and a blog, also available on Quartier Latin.

The fantasy-sounding Kokushin Chronicle sings of the eternal clash of the "light against darkness" trope, with a slow-paced rhythm to back up the melancholic feel. This is also reflected into its Taiko Oni notechart, featuring some of V Version's mildest 1/24 clusters which together with different cluster formations still manage to give some hand-switching troubles to 1st-timers.